


Somewhat Damaged

by SharpestRose



Category: Batman (Comics), The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-29
Updated: 2011-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason Todd steals Mark Zuckerberg's tires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhat Damaged

1\. Mark

Eventually exhaustion gets the better of Mark and he stops refreshing Erica’s profile, closing the laptop and heading downstairs to his car.

He actually listens to his body when it gets too tired to sit in front of a computer, these days. When he starts to see double, he stops looking at a screen.

He’s not the kid he used to be. He just has to live with the consequences of that kid’s choices.

Mark sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, and steps out onto the street, around the corner toward where he’d parked that morning.

Two of his tires have magically transformed into cinderblocks.

Mark’s face pinches into a frown. He’s annoyed more than angry — he’s too tired for proper anger; the emotion is like a distant echo of how he used to feel when he was angry, like a song played at the other end of an echoing room — and now he has to think about calling his car insurance place, and a car service to get him home, and all the other bureaucratic crap that some asshole has now added to an already fraught evening.

There’s a quiet footstep from further down the street and Mark glances over. It’s a kid in a ratty shirt and rattier jeans, holding —

A tire iron. Ah. This would be the asshole, then.

“I was held up at a gas station, once,” he tells the boy in a sharp voice. The boy freezes, an animal caught in a search beam. “The guy shoved a gun in my face. Know what I did?"

“I’m hoping the answer’s not ‘knifed him in the eye’,” the kid replies, rallying his cockiness with admirable speed. “For my own wellbeing and all.”

“I got in my car and drove away,” Mark says. “Which is coincidentally also what I intend to do tonight, once you have returned and replaced the tires.”

The kid smirks. There’s something hurt and sad in his hard little face. Like he didn’t start out as someone who never gave a shit about other people, like Mark, but got made that way through disappointments and betrayals of trust. Like… like happens to some people. The world isn’t built for people like that, and really it’s doing them a favour to make them see that.

“Why would I do that?” the kid asks. What a little snot. Mark, who used to be a little snot to rival the best of them, once upon a time, is almost impressed.

“Because I have just spent the evening being lectured in moral integrity by a corporate litigation attorney. I suspect that puts me somewhere between scum and lower than scum on the human compassion ladder,” Mark retorts. “So put my tires back on, or I’ll make you regret that you didn’t."

The kid looks thoughtful for a few seconds, making a face as he contemplates the words. It reminds Mark of absolutely nobody, especially nobody he’s spent the better part of three days staring at across a table.

“Buy me dinner, after,” the kid demands. “Mickey D’s.”

Mark is tired. He just wants to go home and code until he passes out on the keyboard.

He sighs. “Fine. McDonald’s it is.”

\--

When the kid -

 _("What's your name?"_

 _"Jason. Who're you?"_

 _"My name's Mark.")_

\- has put the tires back on, Mark takes him to a drive-thru and lets Jason order an obscene amount of food.

"You know the buns essentially dissolve, right? So you're left still feeling hungry. There's a sugar compound in the recipe that does it."

"Who cares, man?" Jason says, mouth full of half-chewed burger. "That's why it tastes so goddamn good."

"Do you have somewhere to sleep tonight?"

Jason gives him a wary look. "Why do you wanna know?"

"Because I assume that you're now short whatever amount you would have made from my tires. It wouldn't be right to make you wear the consequences of your altruistic act of giving them back."

Jason shorts. "Altruism my ass. You told me the story of how you stone-cold stared down a mugger. I'm not stupid enough to get on the bad side of a guy like that."

Mark finds himself smiling a little as he drives. "It wasn't quite as impressive as I made it sound. The guy was just a junkie loser."

Jason scowls, childish features suddenly stormy as he glares out the windshield, not looking at Mark. "That's a shitty thing to say. Just because... don't think you know someone so easy. Don't think so fast that you must be better than them for sure."

The hurt and sadness is palpable behind the words. Mark lets silence fall between them for a few minutes before he speaks again. "You can sleep in my spare room."

"Okay," Jason answers mulishly. Then, grudging: "Thanks."

\--

Mark is so tired by the time he goes to bed that he can't even rest properly. He just lies there, blank and heavy-limbed, staring up into the dark.

After a while he gives up and goes downstairs, figuring he might as well waste his sleepless hours on a laptop instead of stuck with his own thoughts.

Jason is sitting at the kitchen table, eating a tuna sandwich at a ravenous pace. He startles when Mark comes in.

"I wasn't stealing anything!"

Mark blinks, pausing for a moment on his path to the fridge. "I'm getting a glass of water." He gets out the jug of water and goes to the cupboard for a glass. "I don't care if you steal anything. I needed my tires to get home. Otherwise I don't care."

"Oh." Jason says. He takes another huge bite of the sandwich.

"I told you that you'd still be hungry after the burgers."

"I'm always hungry. How come you're awake?" Jason asks. Mark takes a long drink of water and leans back against the edge of the countertop. He shrugs.

"You said you were talking to a lawyer," Jason goes on. "Is that what you do? Are you a lawyer?"

"No. I'm being sued."

Jason raises his eyebrows. "Oh yeah? Who by?"

Mark's tired of saying _best friend_. He's tired of giving Eduardo a way to hurt him even while absent. "He worked for me. He was the finance officer of my company. I restructured and forced him out."

Jason stuffs the crust into his mouth and barely chews it before swallowing. "Yeah, well, he should suck it up," he declares with the finality only a twelve-year-old can lend to a pronouncement. "When my dad's boss wanted him out of the company, he shot him in the head. Your guy should be grateful he still _exists_."

Mark has no idea what the response to a revelation like that should be. He puts the water jug back in the fridge, his glass on the draining board. Jason's plate in the dishwasher.

"Do you go to school? What about a social worker, do you have one of those checking up on you?"

"Nope, there's nobody," Jason answers, holding his sharp chin high in a challenge against any pity Mark might dare feel for him.

"All right," Mark answers with a nod. "You can stay here today. There's food and computer games."

"Oh. Thanks. I'll just sleep, probably, though. I can sleep when the sun's up. It's safer."

\--

The lawyers argue about amounts and details. Eduardo doesn't look triumphant, which doesn't seem fair because Mark sure as hell feels defeated.

The day is bright outside the glare-reducing panes on the windows. Mark wishes he could sleep it away.

 _Your guy should be grateful he still **exists**_.

"The masthead," Mark says suddenly, interrupting his own lawyer's words. "Reinstatement in the masthead should go there."

Eduardo looks up, vaguely surprised. Mark stares him down, waiting for him to look away first, to relinquish his right to be curious. Eduardo doesn't look away. Mark shrugs.

\--

He half expects Jason to be gone when he gets home, but the kid's there, curled up on the couch watching _Zoolander_ and looking grey-faced and queasy.

"When was a teenager I lived in a rental with a bunch of friends. We had this on 24/7," Mark says, nodding at Ben Stiller's antics on the screen. "Eventually the neighbours complained, and the landlords threw us out when they saw the state of the place. We'd put a zipline from the chimney to the pool and caused some damage."

Jason snorts. "Sounds like you guys were kind of a bunch of dicks."

Mark smirks. "Yeah. Are you all right?"

"Threw up. Think I ate too much. I've been starving so long, I guess I went too far in the other direction."

"You'll get there. Little steps," Mark says.

\--

He writes an email to his lawyers, asking for their contacts at family services. Then he emails Dustin, with instructions on changing the masthead, and Chris, to say that there'll be no statement or comment about the changes to the masthead. Then he goes to bed and waits to fall asleep.

\--

2\. Jason

 **Six Months Later**

Pacing himself when there's free food for the taking still takes an active act of willpower. Jason's compromising with himself by hoarding his own little stockpile of cocktail wieners here in the corner of the ballroom. The napkin is warm and kind of gross in his hand, but he hasn't eaten so many that he's barfed, so that's a win.

There's a guy wandering over in his direction. He looks bored and lonely and he's young, not old, which means he's less likely to be a condescending dick than most of the other people here have been to Jason.

"I have never seen someone look as miserable to be at one of these things as you do right now," the guy says.

"Yeah, I hate them." Jason scowls at the gala swirling in muted cloth and sparkling diamonds and quiet chatter all around them. "I'm here as punishment, because my room's too awesome for grounding to work."

"For that?" the guy nods at Jason's black eye. Jason nods.

"Yeah, fight at school. Everyone keeps looking at me like I'm a display model of what the abused kids they're donating money to looks like. I feel like I'm Oliver Twist here," Jason complains.

The guy smirks. "Don't worry, it makes you look tough. Artful Dodger, not Oliver Twist."

"Well that's a small mercy, at least." Jason holds a hand out, hoping the guy doesn't mind that his knuckles are split from the same fight as the black eye. "I'm Jason."

"Eduardo." The guy shakes his hand, then turns to snag two champagne glasses off a passing waiter's tray. He offers one to Jason, who takes it and raises an eyebrow.

"Not that I'm complaining, but I'm pretty sure I don't pass for twenty-one here."

Eduardo quirks a grin. "I'm pretty sure this doesn't pass for champagne, so it's even."

Jason takes a mouthful of the drink. "The Sudanese girl you just got these off is the only non-white person here, you know that, right? This is just a fucking feel-good clusterfuck, none of these people actually give a shit about helping people. It's just another excuse for some old white guys to congratulate each other on the size of their dicks."

Eduardo attempts and fails to hide his laugh against the rim of his glass. "You should meet my friend Chris. I think the two of you would get along."

"What about you?" Jason prompts, glancing up and down at the well-cut lines of Eduardo's suit. He looks comfortable wearing the outfit, unlike Jason who still feels like he's playing dress-up or some shit. "You look like a big shot. Who do you help?"

Taking another sip of his drink, Eduardo shakes his head. "I keep my philanthropy private. How I give is my own business; I don't want to advertise it."

"My friend Sean says people love seeing their names on the side of hospitals. He says that's how you get people to give: put their donations on their Facebook feeds where all their friends will see, so they'll all know how generous you are. He's made an app for it."

Eduardo grimaces. "Yeah, well. Sean Parker is an asshole."

Jason laughs. "Yeah," he agrees, in a tone that says _yeah and the sky is blue, thanks for the memo_. He gulps another mouthful of the champagne. "Speaking of assholes, here's my guardian. Hey, Mark! I found someone who isn't lame for us to talk to!"

Jason makes sure his voice is clear and carries well across the crowd. If Mark's going to punish him and drag him to these things, Jason's going to make him regret it.

Trouble is, Mark probably won't think that pissing off dozens of super-rich old guys is all that much of a social faux pas on Jason's part. Damn.

"I. Um, I have to go," Eduardo says, running his hand back through his hair distractedly and downing the rest of his drink in a single swallow. He's gone before Jason can say anything in response, blending back into the crowd.

Mark is staring over at Jason with an unreadable expression on his face. Jason shrugs.

\--

Jason gets enough of the situation out of Mark to put the rest of the pieces together himself. After the party, when he's back at Mark's place, he looks Eduardo up on Facebook.

 _("You realize I can never enjoy your website, right? Most kids die of horror if their parents even think about joining, and you made the damn thing."_

 _"I'm too young to be your father."_

 _"You know what I mean."_

 _"Really, of the two of you, Facebook's the closer to being my biological child, because I created it and you were already pretty much fully created when you moved in here."_

 _"Of the 'two of us'? I'm not getting lumped in with your website and coming second place. Jesus. Try again, Mark, you're giving me a swelled head.")_

Jason sends Eduardo a friend request and then goes to bed.

\--

In the afternoons after class, Jason plays on his school soccer team. He'd always liked playing kickball, back when he was a kid, so soccer was the sport he picked when Mark said he had to do something extracurricular to work off all the shit-stirring energy he had now that he was eating properly.

 _("What'd you play when you were a kid?"_

 _"I've always loved fencing."_

 _"Fencing, are you serious? That's some freaking Zorro shit, Mark! You can go out saving damsels, leaving the Mark of Zuckerberg. Can I do fencing?"_

 _"Maybe in a few more years. I don't think you've quite got the self-discipline yet."_

 _"Whatever. You're trying to harsh my swashbuckle. You'll pay for this one day.")_

After soccer, he has a shower and a sandwich and checks his email. No response from Eduardo. Fine. Jason will have to use his evil master-criminal powers, then. He totally has evil master-criminal powers, and not just from living with Mark. Jason's, like, a stealth infiltration superstar.

There are a bunch of entries for "Chris" in Mark's address book, but Jason uses his amazing powers of evil master-criminal deduction to check Facebook's masthead and find the Chris who appears alongside Mark and Eduardo there.

Jason's actually met the Chris in question a bunch of times. He's a good dude. Jason likes all the marketing and PR stuff that the guy does. It's interesting. Jason thinks that Mark is very, very lucky to have someone that good at brand management and diplomacy in his circle of friends.

He sends Chris an email asking for Eduardo Saverin's cellphone number.

\--

The first text Jason sends says: _you and mark should be buds. your two of the only non-dbag adults. well mark is a dbag kind of._

It's only a few minutes before he gets a reply. _Is this Jason?_

 _yea_

 _I don't think Mark would like me talking to you_ , Eduardo writes back. _And anyway, Mark doesn't want friends._

Jason rolls his eyes, thumbs punching a reply in quickly. _yea he didnt want a kid either. hemostly doesnt want to eat or sleep._

He sends that off, then types another before giving Eduardo a chance to answer. _he is teh stupidest genius as wellas the youngst billonare_.

It's almost ten minutes before Jason's phone buzzes again, but all the new message says is _He doesn't want me as a friend._

 _are you even listening to anything i say_

 _You're not saying anything. You're texting._

 _youre as bad as him I swear you 2 deserve ech other._

No reply. Jason swears under his breath. Fucking assholes making him pull some Lindsay Lohan Hayley Mills shit here, Christ. Next time he's gonna steal the tires off a car that's not owned by an emotionally stunted loser.

 _all that shit u both pulled w/ fb, accnt frzing & diluton & shit, u r like parents who try 2 kill teh baby or make it hate th othr parent 4 revenge_, he types out. _& it costs me alot 2 say that, bcoz you guys need sum bettr fucking kids then a shitty website_.

No reply, again. Jason throws his phone at the bed -- but carefully, because even if he lives in a bedroom full of expensive shit, he still thinks like a poor kid and doesn't want to trash shit just because people are being dicks and annoying him.

He logs onto Facebook and sends Mark a message. _Your friend Eduardo is great. U need to invite him to all the stuff u go 2. U might actaully crack a smile sumtimez._

 _Your typing and spelling horrify me. And Eduardo isn't my friend._

 _oh whatevr_ , Jason messages back. _u redefined that word its yur own fault if it means more than u want it to now_

\--

3\. Eduardo

 **Six Months Later**

At first, Eduardo thought the event invites came from Jason. He's a funny kid, but nosy and pushy, and seems to think that all Mark and Eduardo need to heal the rift between them is some gentle bullying.

But after a while, the invites switched from generic Facebook invitations to personalised emails from Mark's address, and Eduardo doubts that even a kid as cocky as Jason is reckless and foolhardy enough to try hacking Mark's account.

So eventually Eduardo goes against his better instinct and sends a reply to one of the function invites. _Has Jason put you up to these?_

The reply comes six hours later. _He says I need someone to be my conscience. Though why a thirteen-year-old car thief feels qualified for that role is something I intend to leave unexamined._

 _And your adolescent, criminal conscience is telling you to invite me to a charity function you're holding?_

 _Yes,_ Mark answers. Eduardo can practically see the shrug that should accompany the word. It's probably that visual, Mark's infuriatingly unreadable expression, that makes him reply as he does.

 _OK_.

\--

The racial and cultural mix in the crowd is much more diverse than it was at the party where Eduardo first met Jason. Eduardo wonders if that's the kid's doing, or if it's just coincidence.

He can see Jason over near one of the windows, talking to a couple of the younger attendees. The boy's clearly mid-growth-spurt, teenage proportions replacing the nervy, underfed look he'd had half a year ago. He doesn't seem to be hoarding food anymore, either.

Eduardo feels glad to see that. It gives him hope, that one day he might outgrow his own quirks and habits, the greediness that comes from scarcity. Even in the depositions -- even now, a year on from them -- that hunger in Eduardo's chest is always, has always been, still there.

He's grown up, grown sadder, grown quieter. But it's still there.

"You came." Mark sounds pleased and surprised. Eduardo can still read the tiny inflections in Mark's voice, recognise emotions where others would hear only flatness.

"Jason's getting tall," Eduardo notes. "He'll end up taller than you."

"He made me put in a basketball hoop over the garage doors. I figured it was probably less likely to end in maiming than if I gave into the fencing requests."

Despite himself, Eduardo smiles a little at Mark. "I can't see you shooting hoops, somehow."

"He has friends over to use it. Not really my scene, no."

Eduardo resists the impulse to retort _no, friends never really were your scene_. He's not the kid who froze the accounts, not anymore. And maybe Mark's not the kid who diluted the shares. Mark's a parent -- of sorts, anyway -- now, after all. Things change.

Instead of something sharp and cutting, Eduardo says "I... man, I can't even remember the last time I played basketball."

"You should come over sometime," Mark says. "We can try it out."


End file.
